


The Golden Kite, The Silver Wind

by HYPERFocused



Category: Smallville
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, episode-related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-08-30
Updated: 2002-08-30
Packaged: 2017-11-01 09:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/355196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HYPERFocused/pseuds/HYPERFocused
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chloe ponders the weirdness of being a wall-flower. Another Bradbury title.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Golden Kite, The Silver Wind

**Author's Note:**

> Just be glad I didn't call this "For the benefit of Mr. Kent" or "Let's Go Fly a Clark."

Clark Kent fills my sky like the rice paper kites I used to sail as a child. In my dreams, he floats over me like Icarus without that nasty wax problem. He's a thing of beauty, a heady combination of immense strength and hidden fragility. I don't understand why everybody doesn't feel the same way. He's truly a work of art: golden brown skin in perfect muscular balance, his hair is fine strands of onyx. He makes me talk like one of Lana's romance novels. His eyes can change color like the western twilight view from his loft, but they never change for me.

Lex Luthor moves through Smallville like the wind. I don't just mean the way his cars ignore all the rules of safety and speed. You see his effects long before you sense his presence as a physical entity. Clark's father would say he's an ill wind, that never blows anybody any good. (Pete would have something junior high scatological to say about that platitude -- but he'd agree.) His eyes sweep over Clark like a sirocco, cool fingers leaving a trace over his skin even I can feel. When Lex touches Clark, I shiver. 

He's gone. Again. There's been no passage of time between the tornado announcement over the staticy P.A, and the all too familiar disappearance of my date. I'm sitting in my pink satin dress, feeling the worn wooden wall against my back. I don't even have the luxury of righteous anger. I know he would do the same for me, if I was in danger. In fact he has, too many times. I can't be jealous, but I am. He didn't really want to be here, not all of him. I don't think he wants to be where he is, though, either. Lana Lang isn't his ideal -- anymore. Lex Luthor is the zephyr, sweeping him off his feet. 

For far too long, I wanted to be the string connected to that kite, guiding him, keeping him alight in the clouds. I imagined myself running to keep up with him (as if that was possible, I've seen how he moves, even if he tries to hide it). I'd let him out a little more each day, knowing his need to expand his world view, but I'd do my best to keep him close. I realize now, I don't have that power. Clark likes Smallville. He loves his mother and father with an unguarded joy I wish I could share for mine. He's the best friend Pete and I could ever have. But none of that matters now. He doesn't want to be tethered by me. 

Clark doesn't need a string to hold him in the sky. He soars perfectly well on his own. And Lex is a whirlwind, pushing him to even greater heights. As for me, I am nothing but a tangled bit of silk, caught yet again in the trees, and longing for escape. 


End file.
